"It all started with an email from Mary, a reporter
at The Columbus Dispatch, the local newspaper in my town.
'We are looking to have a health inspector examine a home kitchen
the way they might a professional kitchen,' she said. And she had
immediately thought of me - not because I have a dirty kitchen, she
hastened to add, but because I write about food and, she said, I
seemed 'like the kind of person who might be game for this.'

Oh really? Let a health inspector run his gloved
fingers over my kitchen? Was I brave enough? I couldn't turn down a
dare, and a few weeks later two city health inspectors, a
photographer, and a reporter showed up at my door. Here's what
happened."

She goes on to report the inspection, but here are
some interesting findings:

Keep your refrigerator thermometer in the door - that's
usually the warmest area and where temperature-sensitive milk
lives.

Keep meats away from other foods - preferably in its own
drawer.

Some surprising foods need to be refrigerated
immediately, such as cooked rice.

She reports more extensively on three
takeaways, (see the article for the full explanation):

"The real rules for getting food into a safe temperature
zone are not as difficult as I thought they
were...cool food from 135°F (or over) to 70°F within
two hours. You can use ice baths or ice paddles - anything to cool
that food quickly. But after that you have four more hours for the
food to cool to the final 41°F or less. "